Welcome to the house that Jack built. It’s not a huge place compared to some. It’s no Haunted Mansion or Ancient Ghostly Castle or anything. It’s more like a small suburban house on a quiet dead-end street. But things do lurk in the shadows here. And you might be better off not knowing about some of them. Some get pretty nasty. So now that I’ve warned you and before I strain this silly damn metaphor to death, you have my encouragement to come on in. And thanks, as always, for stopping by. -Jack Ketchum

Jack Ketchum is the pseudonym for a former actor, singer, teacher, literary agent, lumber salesman, and soda jerk–a former flower child and baby boomer who figures that in 1956 Elvis, dinosaurs and horror probably saved his life. His first novel, Off Season, prompted the Village Voice to publicly scold its publisher in print for publishing violent pornography. He personally disagrees but is perfectly happy to let you decide for yourself. His short story The Box won a 1994 Bram Stoker Award from the HWA, his story Gone won again in 2000 — and in 2003 he won Stokers for both best collection for Peaceable Kingdom and best long fiction for Closing Time. He has written over twenty novels and novellas, the latest of which are The Womanand I’m Not Sam, both written with director Lucky McKee. Five of his books have been filmed to date — The Girl Next Door, The Lost, Red, Offspringand The Woman, the last of which won him and McKee the Best Screenplay Award at the prestigious Sitges Film Festival in Spain. His stories are collected in The Exit At Toledo Blade Boulevard, Broken on the Wheel of Sex, Sleep Disorder(with Edward Lee), Peaceable Kingdom and Closing Time and Other Stories. His novella The Crossings was cited by Stephen King in his speech at the 2003 National Book Awards. In 2011 he was elected Grand Master by the World Horror Convention.